


Longing To Hear Your Voice

by masquev2



Category: Person Of Interest - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Fix-it fic, shoot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 08:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13830048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masquev2/pseuds/masquev2
Summary: Sameen answers the payphone and follows The Machine’s instructions. It brings her to a new mission and an old friend.





	Longing To Hear Your Voice

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is the beginning of a much larger idea that starts with a fix-it fic and expands into a spin-off series. But I am committing this bit to paper as part of writing challenge I am working on. Today’s challenge was ‘write a short fan fic -trope.

“What about you? You sticking around?”

Sameen looks across the small diner table at Lionel. It seems odd that they might be the only two who had survived all of this, survived the cyber apocalypse when their combined computer skills could just about retrieve their emails.

She was tempted to give his question some serious thought, but the war had cost her an annoying big brother who had saved her life more than once, an odd uncle who had given her a second chance to make something of her life, and a woman who... Root. And even in her limited ability to process feelings and emotions or whatever she wasn’t ready to reflect or rehash just yet.

“I just came to collect my dog.” She told him with the barest hint of a smile.

Sitting by the side of the table Bear’s ears perked at the sound of his name and he let out a doggy whine.

“Your dog?” Lionel dared ask, knowing full well there was no power on Earth that would keep Sameen and Bear apart after everything. He passed the end of the leash to Sameen.

“Come on,” Sameen encouraged the dog as she stood up from her seat. “I’ll see you when I see you.” She said to Lionel as she snagged one more of his fries and left him with one of her signature smirks.

“Not if I see you first.” He called to her retreating back. Lionel debated with himself for a few seconds; did Sameen need more time and distance? Or did she need to be back in the thick of things. Sameen’s hand on the door hastened his decision. “Hey Sameen, wait.”

Turning back Sameen saw Lionel doing that thing all men do when they are looking for something: patting down their clothes, searching through their pockets and inevitably finding what they were looking for in the first pocket that they didn’t check thoroughly to begin with. Lionel locates what he is after in his inside jacket pocket just as Sameen arrives back at the table.

He places a business card face up on the table. The card is emblazoned with a familiar ‘T’ logo and beneath it ‘Thornhill Corporation’.

“She’s got a job for you. If you want it.” He slides the card closer to Sameen.

For a minute she only looks at it and Lionel is convinced that she is going to leave it on the tables edge. She looks away even as she takes the card and tucks it in the pocket of her leather jacket. She spares one last glance for the detective and exits the diner, Bear trotting happily alongside her.

~

Up in the cold vacuum of space a satellite orbiting the Earth adjusts its transmission vectors.

Far below in an abandoned, and destroyed, subway station a computer hidden away beneath a staircase boots up.

>DOWNLOADING SATELLITE DATA

On the other side of Manhattan a brand new set of servers comes to life.

>DUPLICATE ONLINE  
>RESTORING CORE HEURISTICS...

A bank of computer monitors switch on.

>SEARCHING FOR ADMIN...  
>ADMIN FOUND  
>AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS...  
>CONTACTING ANALOG INTERFACE...

~

At a corner on West 49th Street a payphone starts to ring as Sameen passes it. She stops and turns to look at the booth, it has to be a coincidence. The Machine had sacrificed itself to take Samaritan with it; both ASIs should be inhabiting cyber heaven about now, or digital hell in Samaritans case. But then why had Lionel given her a business card for the Machine’s cover identity?

Before it could ring again Sameen snatched the receiver from the cradle, she held it before her for a moment, bracing herself for the voice she would hear on the other end. Honey smooth tones that had kept her company throughout her captivity; soothing her through the pain of torture, calm words to keep her sane through interrogation, whispered promises of freedom in the darkest nights.

She pressed the receiver to her ear, but it wasn’t the mechanical simulation of Root’s voice that greeted her. A series of high pitched beeps was followed by the more familiar amalgamation of many voices spitting out disjointed words into a disjointed sentence:

“tuRN It oVEr”

Turn what over? What the fuck was the machine trying to tell her? Oh, the card. Desperately trying to keep the phone to her ear and not drop Bear’s leash Sameen fumbled in her pocket and retrieved the slightly crumpled business card. She flipped it over and found a series of digits printed on the back: 40 44’21.95”N, 74 00’27.61”W - longitude and latitude, a location.

“gO THerE”

Sameen looks up to find the nearest security camera, mounted on the post of a traffic signal, pointed directly at her. Did she want to be an acolyte of The Machine again? Putting her life on the line for people she didn’t know? But Sameen was a soldier, she always would be and that was what soldiers did. And maybe she felt like a little part of her owed Harold and John to keep up the good fight. And maybe a bigger part of her wanted to have a last connection with Root, after all the other woman had believed that they all existed in The Machine.

She replaced the receiver, smiled for the camera and tugged on Bear’s leash to get him moving again. Moments later she disappeared into the crowd.

~

The co-ordinates on the business card lead Sameen to Gansevoort Street in the Meat Packing District. The area is run down and closed down, and the building a dilapidated warehouse; graffiti covers the the closed shutters, the windows of the lower level have been boarded up to keep out any undesirables and the windows of the upper levels are a patchwork of smashed panes.

She circled around the building, finding a door that had seen some recent use. A new lock had been installed, disguised to look weathered to a casual eye, but not well enough to a seasoned spy like Sameen.

She tries the handle and discovers it to be unlocked. Well that kind of defeats the purpose. But she reasoned that The Machine was expecting her. Keeping Bear on a short leash she draws her pistol and ventures inside the building.

A dark corridor gives way to a large factory space, a graveyard of machines long since picked over by scavengers. The roof has caved in in some places, big slabs of metal and concrete fallen to litter the floor in debris, and allowing the pigeons to roost in the remaining rafters. Every part of the place is old and broken. Except for the door off to the right of the factory floor. It is new and shiny and completely out of place, much more suited to a bank vault - sturdy and secure.

Picking her way across the floor, taking note of the well hidden security cameras and motion sensors, Sameen makes her way towards the door. Just to the left of the door is a small panel that lights up upon her approach, a retinal scanner. She leans closer, presenting her eye for the scan and is unsurprised when the words ‘ACCESS GRANTED’ appear on the little screen and the metal door pops open.

Sameen finds herself inside what must have been at one time the administrative offices of the whole enterprise, now renovated into a swank apartment slash base of operations.

The main section is double height, revealing rooms on other side at ground level and matching metal staircases on either side leading up to higher level rooms. It serves as a lounge and dining room; exposed brickwork, leather couches, a table and chairs. At the far end of the room is a computer geeks paradise; wall mounted monitors showing footage and information from New York, Washington DC, Miami and Chicago. Beneath are another bank of monitors, vast amounts of code scrolling up their screens. The mahogany desk top is littered with computer parts and tools. A thick twist of cables climbs up the wall and disappears into an upstairs room which Sameen can only guess houses the servers for the entire affair.

She nudges the door immediately to her right open a little and peers inside. She might have thought it a library if it wasn’t for the king size bed with its dark red pillows and comforter. One of the walls is lined with dark wood shelves and filled with books that look as though they might have come directly from the old library.

Bear chooses that moment to pull on his lead and it slips from Sameen’s grasp and he charges up the staircase in front of her, disappearing into the room at the top. She follows after him quickly, just in time to watch him flop down on a doggy bed - his doggy bed, in a room that looks like it had been designed and decorated with her in mind. The carpet, the walls and the bedsheets are in different shades of blue. The wall behind Bear’s bed is a custom designed weapons rack, all manner of guns enclosed behind sliding glass doors and held at a cool temperature. On the other side of the room is a free weights station, complete with bench and punching bag. And hanging from the lamp on the bedside cabinet, an Order of Lenin. Sameen moves to examine it more closely and finds the tiny scratch that identifies it as the exact medal that Gen had given her.

A shiver runs along her spine, when she hears the longed for voice reach out to her, “Hey Sweetie.”

Sameen spins around to find Root standing in the doorway of her bedroom. She wants to believe what she is seeing, but is not sure that she should. Her grasp on reality is still tenuous sometimes. But the clues had been there.

Lionel was the only one who had been with her at the hospital. He was the one who gave her the business card. Had said ‘she’ far too easily.

The Machine no longer spoke with Root’s voice as though she didn’t need to because she would hear it whenever she wanted to.

The bedroom was everything that Sameen could possibly want because Root had designed it for her that way.

Sameen wanted to ask so many questions. Wanted to yell at Root for letting her think the other woman was dead. Was torn between shooting her in the shoulder with the gun she still held in her hand, or pushing her up against the wall and fucking her senseless. But Sameen did none of those things, she could only stare at the woman before her.

Root smiled. The smile that said everything and explained absolutely nothing. “Ready to get back to work?”


End file.
